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I will not cry here.
I will not sob out my broken heart in the street below my office party.
I will make it home, change into flannel pajamas, andthenfall apart like a grown up, damn it.
Ride confirmed. Tracking the little dot of my savior on the map, I stare dry-eyed as my driver inches through traffic.
That was my first kiss.
Myonlykiss.
Darius took that from me, and it didn’t even mean anything to him. Is that allowed? Is that what I agreed to with this fake date? Am I an idiot?
“Lucy.”
Normally, the deep, smooth sound of Darius Amin’s voice makes butterflies explode inside me. Right now, it makes my teeth grind.
“Lucy,” he says, coming to my side. Didn’t hear the front door open, or I would have made a run for it, even in these heels. “There you are. Please, don’t leave like this.”
Thereallymessed up thing is that Darius sounds as wrecked as I feel. Like tonight is an emotional rollercoaster for him too, but that makes no sense.
He’s the heartthrob who sees me as a friend, nothing more. This is all a big joke to him.
I’m the dumbass on a fake date with her crush.
And when I put it like that, I can’t even be mad at him. Not really. Darius hasn’t done anything that I didn’t agree to—eagerly.
“Just a headache,” I mutter, tilting my phone so he can see my ride is nearly here. Darius snakes a hand out faster than I can react, canceling my ride with the tap of a button. “Hey!”
“Don’t lie to me, Lucy.” Great. Now he’s pissed off, too—and when I finally look up, Darius is rumpled and angry, hisnormally smooth appearance fraying. “You can feel however you need to feel, but don’t lie to me, damn it. Not me.”
But Idohave a headache. It’s called Darius Amin.
And there’s a simple cure: a ride home, alone, and then a pint of butterscotch ice cream on my sofa. This treatment is tried and tested, okay? Because this is not my first rodeo. Not my first meltdown about loving the man in front of me—it’s just the first one that he’s seen.
“Come back upstairs,” he begs.
I snatch my phone back. “Hard pass.”
“Not to the party. I—there’s somewhere else we can go. Somewhere to talk this out. Then I swear, I will get you home safely and leave you be, just… please, Lucy.” Those mournful brown eyes bore into mysoul.“Don’t leave things broken between us. I can’t bear it.”
AndIcan’t bear to see this man crumbling with despair. Because he’s not just my heart-stoppingly handsome crush, after all—he’s my friend.
My infuriating, charming, caring friend. The man who brings me coffee and pastries every morning. Crap. I owe him more than this, don’t I?
“Ten minutes.” That’s all I can handle. I shove my phone in my clutch, already counting down. “Then I’m gone. I really do have a headache.”
“Ten minutes,” Darius agrees quickly. “Deal.”
He leads me back into the building, across the fancy marble lobby, and into the elevator. The doorman waves us off as the doors close.
And we lift off, carried up to where another painful conversation awaits. I swear to god: this night is eternal.
* * *
The elevator stops just below the roof. “The penthouse?” I say stupidly, tripping out after Darius as he leads us to the only door in the short corridor. The floor tiles, the light fixtures, the sage-green walls—everything here seems fancy and expensive. It’s a far cry from my own sixth floor walk-up, with my threadbare curtains and constantly humming refrigerator. “Why are wehere?”
“Got a key.” Darius fishes a bunch from his pocket, jingling them at me with a brisk smile—but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He was silent in the elevator too, the air thick between us. “A spare. The boss won’t care if we borrow his place for ten minutes.”
